High Diagnostic Potential for Indication Specific Biomarkers

Dortmund, Germany and New Jersey, USA, November 17th, 2009 / b3c newswire / - The 1st user meeting on protein arrays in clinical applications was organized by Protagen, Germany, and focused on the increasing relevance of new markers and marker panels for drug development and therapy. Especially the potential of Protagen’s UNIarray® platform technology for identification and validation of reliable biomarkers for indications like Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinsons Disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Heart Failure, and Prostate Cancer as well as the technological and biostatistical challenges in production and read-out of protein array based multiplex diagnostics were discussed. Initiated by the DGKL1 Working Group Clinical Proteomics and the MPC2 , the “1st User Meeting on Protein Arrays for Clinical Applications“ took place in the BioMedizinZentrum Dortmund on November 6th, 2009.

The current „Unmet Diagnostic Need“ and the relevance of autoantibody signatures for advanced diagnostics and therapies in the indications mentioned above were impressively covered by the speakers’ presentations.

Prof. Matthias Schneider, Head of the Rheumatology Department at the University Clinic Duesseldorf stated that „despite the fact that these novel autoantibody based serum diagnostics have not proven yet their robustness in routine applications, the results elaborated together with Protagen are already very impressive and promising“.

Dr. Stefan Müllner, CEO of Protagen AG, added „ In the last years we were able to establish a distinguished international network of clinical cooperation partners interested in our platform technology, and therefore are well equipped for the multi-center clinical validation of indication specific marker panels.“

Dr. Jean-Marc Schlaeppi, Novartis Pharma AG, employs the UNIchip®-Technology of Protagen AG in preclinical development projects of therapeutic antibodies and explained after his talk “We are using these Chips for quantitative ranking of antibody development candidates based on the number of off-target-binding events”.

In summary, an interdisciplinary and comprehensive discussion was started to match the current status in protein array technologies and clinical requirements. A follow-up meeting is already planned for 2010.

About Protagen AG – www.protagen.comProtagen AG is a leading provider of products, services and software solutions for protein research with sites in Dortmund, Germany, and Chester, New Jersey, USA. Technology innovations of Protagen are UNIclone®, a patented platform for development and use of protein expression libraries, and UNIchip®, a versatile and highly efficient family of products for the development of antibodies, as well as UNIarray®, unique technology base for the development of new diagnostics.